The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government for governmental purposes, without the payment of any royalty thereon.
The present invention relates to a means generally known as chaff, which is utilized to interfere with electronic radar devices by creating false target information to confuse enemy radar systems. Conventional chaff is normally comprised of foils or strips of metal or other suitable electrically reflective material. It is dropped from aircraft, or dispersed from rockets shells or the like to provide the false signals to enemy radar systems by attenuation or reflection in order to create decoys for the real target.
A problem, however, occurs in that the bandwidth of the reflected radar signal of conventional chaff will differ from that of a fast moving target such as an airplane or missile due to the doppler effect created by the fast moving target. Thus, a chaff that will produce a wider band reflected radar signal is needed to prevent enemy radar systems from distinguishing the chaff from a fast moving target by compensating for the doppler effect of the moving target.
The primary objective of this invention is an improved chaff that produces microarcs of current in an electromagnetic field by an intermittent make-break contact between the conductive surfaces of the chaff, so as to make the chaff appear as a faster moving target on an enemy radar screen, thereby aiding in foiling the detection of the real target.